View from the master bedroom looking into the master bath...yes, that's right there were no doors separating the bedroom from the part of the bathroom where the sinks and vanity were.
The left sink was cracked, faucets outdated, floor was a linoleum that we didn't love, and the two medicine cabinets on either side of the sinks made the space feel smaller. Oh, and see the wall paper?
The mirror was also VERY chipped along the bottom to the point that the bottom of the mirror wasn't reflective.
One more of the view from the bedroom into the bath.
The first time we looked at the house, I wondered outloud if this wall separating the vanity area from the shower and toilet area could be removed. I knew it would make the bathroom seem SO much larger! The room with the toilet and shower had wallpaper too, just a different design-blue with flowers.
There were no blinds on the bathroom window, just this curtain.
The old toilet.
There was so much we wanted to change about the master bathroom, and after we loved the renovations we made to the half bath we were ready to tackle the master bath.
We first realized that the sheetrock under the wallpaper was not the proper kind. It wasn't moisture resistant green sheetrock like you're supposed to have in a bathroom. So we replaced the sheetrock which solved the wallpaper issue too! Replacing the sheetrock was such a horribly messy process that we decided to quadruple the mess and go ahead and scrape the popcorn off the ceiling at the same time. Thankfully John did all of this because it was horribly messy and not fun work (and I ended up being sick with a horrible sinus infection in addition to still being in the tired/early stages of my pregnancy with Clayton during this time)!
It was such messy work. There was no way to capture the mess on camera, but it was so dusty that John had to wear this mask the whole time he was scraping the popcorn off the ceiling. It was so worth it though, because it looks amazing! After he was finished he painted the ceiling which took several coats of Behr ceiling paint. Then he removed the ceiling vents and gave them a fresh coat of white paint making the whole ceiling look so fresh and clean!
While we were replacing the old sheetrock, this was the perfect time to take out the wall! The picture above shows the green moisture resistant sheetrock that is supposed to be used in high moisture areas like bathrooms, AND you can see the amount of wall we removed. See where there is no linoleum? That's where the wall was. We took this wall out to be even with the wall that is on the side of the toilet. The only hassle with moving this wall was that we had to move a light switch, but it was worth it!
Here's another picture showing where we were replacing sheetrock and the wall we took out.
Our master toilet was in odd locations in the bathroom for months-haha! As we worked on the sheetrock and various areas of the bathroom we had to move it around as you'll see in different pictures.
So then while I was at the beach with the kids in October, John painted the bathroom. We chose Behr paint with a Benjamin Moore color of Revere Pewter. I was so excited to come home to a painted bathroom.
Then it was time to paint the vanity.
This is a process but is so rewarding. See the above picture for the before color of the vanity.
And here is the after picture. White vanity with oil rubbed bronze hardware.
(ignore the mess! why does every project have to make a mess?!)
The opening to the master bath was an odd size, so we had to custom order French doors which took about 3 weeks. We ordered them in a frame but unfinished. When I showed up to pick them up the first time, the doors were completely wrong! It was the company's mistake, so they rush made the correct doors in 24 hours! We wanted to hang the doors before painting them because we thought it would be easier and that way if they got any scratches while being hung, we could fix it.
So here are the doors after they were hung.
The glass looks odd in this picture because we still had the plastic on each piece of glass. The kids thought it was hilarious that our doors didn't have knobs yet either.
Even though they weren't painted yet and didn't have door knobs, we loved the look of the doors!
Because the doors were unfinished wood, they soaked up a ton of primer. There were so many tiny details of painting these doors it took FOUR HOURS for EACH COAT! This was double (if not more) what I had anticipated!
The doors ended up taking one generous coat of primer, and two coats of paint. That's 12 hours of painting these doors! I would never have guessed!
Next up was getting door knobs on them. We picked out oil rubbed bronze dummy knobs that no one had in stock, so after they finally came in, John and I spent one evening installing all 4 door knobs.
We were SO excited with how the doors looked painted and with the knobs!
Now for the floor...
We picked out tile that looks like hardwood. We looked at several stores for this before finding this tile we really liked. I didn't like the ones that had a lot of "grain" look to them, and we didn't want to go too dark or too light. It was a hard medium to find. BUT we actually ended up finding this tile at Lowes.
Next up was doing a ton of research on how to offset this tile. To make it stronger and to make it have that "hardwood" look, I picked having the 4ths lined up (I'm just documenting this here so that when we do the kids' bathroom I can remember and do the exact same thing!).
This was when the tile was going down.
Here's the tile, still wet with no grout, but we were getting really excited about how it looked!
And here it is after the dark brown grout was down.
Ignore all the "fog" we weren't walking on it yet and the grout wasn't dry so I couldn't mop all that up. BUT, again, we were getting excited about how the bathroom was starting to look!
Next up on the tile list was above the shower.
We worked hard choosing this tile too. We wanted something that went with our gray walls but was pretty neutral and looked good with the new floor tile.
This was the tile after it was up and before the grout.
We picked a gray grout for this tile, and we *almost* underestimated how much grout this would take! It was close! It took a lot more grout that we anticipated! (That's another note for when we do the kids' bathroom renovations.)
After we had the tile down on the floor and above the shower, it was time to frame in the opening between the vanity area and shower area where we had removed the wall. Somehow I didn't get any pictures of this process, but it was uneventful and we were happy with how it looked.
We were SO happy with how our bathroom was looking now the only eye sores left were the sinks, faucets, counter top, and mirror.
We chose this new countertop and had a company come install it. They were so fast and efficient! I was impressed! We just had them cut the sink holes and said we would do the rest.
We chose new white sinks and oil rubbed bronze faucets. The day the countertops were installed while John was at work, that night John and my dad got all the sinks and faucets installed so we were only without upstairs bathroom sinks and counters for 24 hours which was SO nice!
Then John and I spent a couple of evenings after the kids went to bed installing the two towel rings, the toilet paper holder, and three hooks for towels. We are really pleased with our decision to use towel hooks instead of bars!
Now the only eye sore left was the mirror. We decided to trim out the builder grade mirror that was already in place.
Step one was to remove the decorative flower screws holding it on the wall and replace it with flat head screws. Step two was painting the trim and then measuring and cutting it with the miter saw we borrowed from a friend. We were intimidated by cutting these angles when we did the half bath, but it ended up being so much easier than we thought that we knew we could do it again. This time was even easier than last time!.
This picture is after I had hung the two sides and bottom of the mirror. I waited on these to dry completely before placing the top frame on it.
Now the bathroom just needed wood transition pieces on the floor between the carpet and tile, and we purchased those in wood and I stained them to be a close match to the tile.
The master bathroom renovations (which felt at times to be never-ending) are finally complete!!!
Here are our after pictures!
This picture just shows our 45 degree angle cuts on the wood to achieve the framed in mirror.
Oil rubbed bronze towel holders
Towel hooks in oil rubbed bronze
This picture also shows the light switch we had to move from the wall we removed.
I think I forgot to mention that we also replaced the toilet!
French doors into the master bedroom and the other door into my walk in closet.
View from the master bedroom into the bathroom!
So much different than it was when we bought the house!!
